


Light of the Maker

by vaulthunter



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, Fire, Mage Rebellion, Mages and Templars, Mages vs. Templars, Templars, Templars (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaulthunter/pseuds/vaulthunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new kind of mage rebellion, with a lot more fire and death. Post-Inquisition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light of the Maker

**Author's Note:**

> heavily inspired by the game of thrones season 6 finale and titled after the OST 'light of the seven'. Lys Terrelle, Naja Kaur, and Valanthriel belong to tori! see her here: http://archiveofourown.org/users/trustjack/pseuds/trustjack

_The fifteenth of Drakonis._

The White Spire could be seen from where she stood, puncturing the clouds like a sword and hanging over Orlais like a beacon of dread. Here on her terrace, so far away, she could almost pretend she hadn't known the horrors of that tower. Locked away like an uncontrollable loose cannon, sentenced to a lifetime of helplessness and servitude in the name of the Maker. _The Maker,_ Miryam thought, eyes narrowing. _Nothing more than a thin veil for mankind's cowardice insecurities._

She forgave Him, but she did not forgive the Chantry. That was why this had to happen.

"It's time," said a voice from behind her. A quiet voice, but laced with something unnatural. 

Miryam turned away from the Spire, her black silks of mourning sweeping the floor. Upon reaching the golden-haired mage, she stepped into stride with him.

X

"I cannot allow these indecencies to continue, no more than the mages can." Divine Victoria's voice rang throughout the hall as she sat upon the Sunburst Throne. With an end being put to the mage rebellion and a new Divine chosen, it was past time to begin the negotiations, so that harmony could follow the devastation the uprising caused. "We must reach a consensus," the Divine continued. "Preferably without violence, Knight-Commander."

Knight-Commander Ludovic bristled. "It is impossible to negotiate with those who do not want to negotiate, Your Holiness. These mages do not want a consensus, they want a hand-out!"

"What we want," Grand-Enchanter Vivienne piped in, "is a mutually-determined equality. Equality does not entail keeping mages locked in a tower as if they are criminals, forbidden to leave or communicate with their families, while you templars abuse them and neglect their most basic needs."

"For every one templar gone awry, there are ten mages using blood magic to murder their way to a freedom they do not deserve," Ludovic snapped. "All mages are subjected to the risk of possession, and for the protection and well-being of the people, this is why they must be contained!"

"And what of mages?" Vivienne responded, taking a step towards the Knight-Commander. "Are we not people too? People that deserve to be protected as much as those without the gift of magic? Because from all evidence provided - of which there is a criminalizing amount of - the only thing people need to be protected from is templars."

The Commander jabbed a finger at the mage. "You dare!"

"Enough!" the Divine ordered. "I will have order, and the both of you will keep this civil. I will hear out the Knight-Commander first. Please, present your cause."

Ludovic smiled. "Gladly."

X

Under the cover of darkness and the hoods of their cloaks, the two wayward rebels moved through the back alleyways of Val Royeaux. "You are certain this will work?" Miryam questioned her partner. She'd never imagined she would see him again under these circumstances, but she'd never imagined she would be under these circumstances in the first place.

"I am not certain of anything anymore," Anders responded quietly. "But it is a worthy death, should we fail."

The silver-haired mage turned her gaze to the ground beneath her moving feet. _He is right,_ she decided. _This is right. This is the only way. Justice is something you receive, vengeance is something you take._ "This feels like the end," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"It is the end. The end to templar cruelty, to Chantry cruelty. Even if we die in the crossfire, this will mean the age of freedom for mages."

Miryam Mottiere shook off the last of her doubts with the flick of her fire-engulfed finger.

X

"Every templar has lost a brother or sister to an untrained mage," explained the Knight-Commander. "And these mages are not even those who knew the confinement of the Circle and escaped, these are mages born of ignorant disobedience who thought they were strong enough to hold against the lure of demons. Apostates, when left unchecked, can destroy entire villages! More than that! Is losing that many lives worth the risk, Your Holiness?" The Divine gave him the benefit of the doubt with an inclination of her head. Ludovic continued. "And there are only a select few templars that abuse their power, certainly no more than mages who do the same. Both sides have their faults. Because mages are inherently more dangerous, they should not hold the same authority as templars."

"You raise a good point, sire," the Divine allowed. Her gaze turned to Vivienne. "And your case, Grand-Enchanter?"

The mage stepped forward. She gestured to the mages holstered on the left side of the hall. "These are people, humans and elves with real feelings who know real pain and real loss at the hands of these 'select few' templars that abuse them. Our Knight-Commander forgets that one astray templar in power can do as much damage to a powerless, confined mage as an untrained mage can do to a village. What happened in Kirkwall was a tragedy, but a long-coming one. Without it, the Chantry would have remained content to let its templars do as they please to the mages. The problem does not lie within the Circle, Your Radiance. It lies within the Chantry and the templars. It is a failing system, one that needs to be addressed here and now. A common ground must be reached. We cannot reach it without making changes, as the Knight-Commander is so against."

"What would you have me do, Madame?" the Divine inquired, tilting her head slightly.

"Disband the templars," Vivienne declared. "Create a faction similar to a city guard that can act as protectors against outsiders for those within a Circle that acts as an academy and not a prison."

"That is a tall order."

"Your Holiness, you cannot consider this," the Knight-Commander said, outraged. "Surely you know the value of the templars. No simple guard can hold against a dangerous mage as we do."

"You are right, of course," said the Divine. "How can we train these guards if not in the way of the templar? They must have an edge against magic."

"Must they?" Vivienne responded calmly. "Magic is a tool and a weapon, no different than a sword or bow."

"A ball of fire can do a lot more damage than a single arrow or a swing of the sword," Ludovic argued. 

The tall, slender mage turned her icy gaze unto the Commander. "Not if the wielder is good at their job," she snapped. 

He opened his mouth, ready to spit back a fiery response, but Divine Victoria held up a hand to silence them both. She leaned forward in her throne. "I have reached a decision," she decreed.

The hall's breath seemed to catch and hold. The Divine prepared to hone her word into a decision that would determine the fate of mages and templars everywhere - but her Left Hand, hooded and bearing the sigil of a Seeker, burst through the doors of the Spire. Each of her steps was timed with precise purpose as she marched her way down the isle to the Divine, paying no mind to the tens of mages and templars surrounding her. Upon marching up the steps and reaching the throne, she leaned down to speak in the Divine's ear.

"Your Holiness. Something is wrong," she said, too low to be overhead.

Divine Victoria tilted her head to look at the esteemed Leliana. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure," Leliana responded, uneasy. "The Warden-Commander is missing from her confinement." Being the Warden-Commander, Miryam Mottiere was treated with the utmost respect in her unfortunate limitations. They could not, sadly, allow her to walk the city free with the rumors of her conspiring with rebels floating about. 

"Did anyone see her leave?" The woman that spoke was not the named Victoria, but the concerned warrior, Cassandra. 

"Only one of my scouts," the red-head answered quietly. "He says she was leaving with a man that fit the profile of... of Anders."

_The rebel mage that destroyed Kirkwall's Chantry, and plunged Thedas into the uprising that led us here._ "We must go," Cassandra declared, worry beseeching her heart. "All of us!" she shouted, standing up from her throne. "Leave the Spire now!"

Murmurs of confusion erupted into shouts of panic as mages and templars alike made way for the doors. The first templar to push against the doors, however, was suddenly thrown across the room as a shadow leapt from the rafters and lodged a dagger into the woman's throat. More shadows began appearing, small men and women dressed in solid black, their forms entirely masked save for the glint of silver casting from their daggers. They began to form a barricade at the doors.

Then it was fire.

The doors were thrown open as two tall figures busted through, their palms alight. One was silver-haired with the face of fury, fire spewing from her palms, enveloping the screaming crowd in a blanket of flames. The other was wrought with glowing blue runes - a sure sign of spirit possession, Cassandra knew. Bolts of raw Fade pierced the hearts of armored templars as the possessed mage wreaked havoc alongside his fiery partner. 

Cassandra tore her Divine robes off and unsheathed the sword that she kept hidden at her belt. "Commander!" she bellowed, but there was no being heard over the panic. The shadow assassins were flickering in and out of existence, stabbing someone in the back with each appearance they made. People were falling all around her, and above it all, the fire.

The Spire's walls began to crumble. Cassandra didn't know where to swing. Smoke assaulted her nose, accompanied by the horrendous smell of burning flesh and the overwhelming sound of the screams of the dying. The female mage behind the fire was pausing, her eyes beginning to turn red and orange and gold. She's powering up a spell. Cassandra began to run, plowing through the crowd, desperately trying to reach the mage before she could deploy whatever monstrosity she was brewing. Shoving friend and foe alike aside, dodging burning corpses, fighting against the smoke beginning to fill her lungs, Cassandra Pentaghast _ran_ to the wall of flames barring the doors.

It was in vain.

It was all in vain.

X

Northeast of the White Spire's demise, a trail of iced bodies led to the remnants of Nevarra's Circle of Magi. Standing in the midst of the rubble and masonry and chill was Lys Terrelle, her pale, slender hands engulfed in ice crystals and frost. Some of the dead bodies were beaten and bloodied from the jumps they'd made in an attempt to escape Lys's wraith. Others were black and blue and cold, as if they'd been dead a hundred years, from Lys using necromancy to raise the victims of her magic for the purpose of defending her against the templars stupid enough to resist.

The mage brushed a drop of blood from her cheek and stepped from the ashes of the age of oppression.

X

Across the Waking Sea, Ferelden's Circle was reduced to a ghost. Wildfire licked what little remained. Overhead, a winged silhouette circling in and out of the clouds roared victoriously. The dragon's yellow eyes gleamed in the moonlight as she made a dive for the shore of Lake Calenhad. As she neared the ground, her form began to shift, obscured behind a shield of light. When she landed, her legs were two.

Morrigan crossed her arms over her chest as she approached the edge of the water, admiring her work with the faintest of smirks upon her lips.

X

Sophey Trevelyan stood in silverite armor fitted to suit a mage. It'd been a pretty set of armor, once. Before it'd been dosed in blood. Open slits coated the Inquisitor's arms and palms, victim to the bloodied dagger she held in her right hand. Demons of all sins ran rampant throughout the remnants of Ostwick's Circle of Magi, ravenous for the hundreds of dead bodies ripe for possessing. 

There was only one more cut left to make. Sophey raised the dagger to her throat.

X

_Magnificent._ Naja Kaur was perhaps the most receptive to the Warden-Commander's plans. All this chaos and excitement was not something she would take kindly to being left out of. Rivain's Circle of Magi was being circled by hundreds of spirits, all bound to the seer standing at the foot of the destroyed tower. She lifted her veil to take in the scenery. Bolts of Fade magic flew here and there, taking out the last few stragglers unlucky enough to not die in the initial collapse. The seer smiled and turned away from the field of corpses and rubble.

Her servants followed her into the city, hungry.

X

The pitiful moans of the walking dead droned on throughout the ruins of the Antivan Circle. Valanthriel was in the middle of it all, a beacon of life upon a field of dead. One by one, Valanthriel approached them, slitting their throats to put them out of their misery. "Thank you," she said to each throat she slit.

_For your sacrifice. For the freedom you have won for us with it._

X

By the time the sun began to peer over the horizon, every Circle of Magi was reduced to a painful memory. The Divine was dead. Her servants were dead. The Grand-Enchanter and the Knight-Commander shared their graves.

And for the first time in history, mages and templars were truly and unconditionally equal. They burned together. They died together. They would rot together.

But not all was destroyed. Miryam Mottiere made sure of that. A throne remained, one of its arms missing and a good chunk of the sunburst crowning it now ashes. The rebel leader approached it through the flames engulfing the vicinity.

Slowly, she took her seat.


End file.
